Airport Planning Retreat Had $23,421 Price Tag

Disney Will Pay The Cost Of Rooms At The Grand Floridian, Leaving The Airport To Pay $8,085.13 For Food.

September 6, 1997|By Roger Roy of The Sentinel Staff

When officials at Orlando International Airport decided to get away from daily distractions recently to plan their billion-dollar expansion, they headed to Walt Disney World's most expensive hotel for a four-day retreat.

Eighteen authority officials and consultants stayed in $284-a-night rooms at the Grand Floridian Resort, but the authority won't have to pay for the $15,336 cost of the rooms.

Instead the room charge will be deducted from the $149,000 that Disney agreed to provide in services to the authority for displays and advertisements the company placed in the terminals at Orlando International to celebrate the attraction's 25th anniversary last year.

The authority will pay the $8,085.13 tab for food and non-alcoholic beverages.

Lee Tillotson, the Greater Orlando Aviation Authority's senior director for planning and development, said the retreat gave planners a chance to escape distractions at the airport while planning the facility's biggest expansion in history.

''We were meeting once a week (at the airport) but we had really kind of hit the wall,'' Tillotson said. ''We wanted to get people to totally immerse themselves in this and see if we couldn't reach a breakthrough.''

At the retreat, ''We were basically working from 8 a.m. until 9 or 10 at night,'' Tillotson said.

The 900-room Grand Floridian is Disney's most costly and most luxurious hotel, with room rates from $284 to $530 a night. It was ranked the best in Central Florida in a recent national survey and has been the hotel of choice for royalty and some of Disney's most well-heeled visitors.

Tillotson said Disney officials chose the hotel for the authority's retreat. Disney spokesman Bill Warren said the Grand Floridian was the only hotel with enough rooms and conference space available on about two weeks' notice.

''We wouldn't have paid that kind of money if we hadn't had the agreement with Disney,'' Tillotson said.

Tillotson said the retreat was a success because planners and consultants solved some of the expansion's biggest problems and agreed on a concept for a new south terminal complex that will be built south of the airport's existing terminal.

The cost of the retreat is insignificant compared with the price tag of the expansion, Tillotson said.

''We're talking about a total program that includes $650 million to $700 million of investment for the authority in the first phase and ultimately over $2 billion at build-out,'' he said.

The retreat's meal tab was about $89 per person per day. The authority's travel policy caps spending on meals at $38 per day.

Authority spokeswoman Carolyn Fennell said the cap didn't apply because ''it wasn't actually travel - it was more like booking a meeting or conference room.''

Most meals were catered, and the costs include an 18 percent gratuity, Fennell said, adding, ''They ordered the least expensive buffet available.''

Neither authority nor Disney officials could give a detailed listing Friday of how much of the $149,000 in services Disney still owes the authority. The services include airfare and accommodations for dignitaries to attend Disney anniversary events, and management seminars for airport officials at The Disney Institute. Warren said the airport's charges were ''well past'' $100,000.